


Even at the Worst of Times...

by Lacklusterswirl



Series: Tumblr Oneshots [1]
Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Death, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Honestly each oneshot has the warnings put up in the beginning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, There's one with, Torture, but those are the main few
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-04 07:19:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18338828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacklusterswirl/pseuds/Lacklusterswirl
Summary: ...I'm still outta my mind. (Yes I know it's different from the song, but it was intentional.)This is a collection of eight tumblr oneshots in one super long post. Some of the stories have my personal thoughts right before each new story, and specific warnings are also displayed before the actual story. In general, it's all pretty sad stuff, and nothing is connected with others.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, final reminder to please check out the warnings before each individual story. In addition, the numbering is off as the numbers correspond to what I have saved on my computer, which is why 03 and 09 are missing. Those were already posted to this account. If your curious, 03 is the valentines day one shot, and 09 is Unsteady.

**(Warnings: PTSD, flashbacks, car crash, attempted (assisted?) suicide, no happy end.)**

**01 Ying’s PTSD:**

I wrote this because it felt poetic, and since I can relate to bad car crashes, it felt cathartic for me to connect to _anyone_ , even if it was a fictional character. This is what I assumed she would go through, going between the time right after her accident, and after she joined rainbow. And since I don’t think PTSD is something that magically goes away, it has an end that implies that what she goes through will continue.

~

She used to dream that she was floating in the middle of the air. She could flip until her stomach churned, somersault until she couldn’t tell which was up, and fly just like her namesake. But Ying knew what came next. The bright lights of a car, the loud, yet low thud, the car alarms…

She remembered all of it.

And that’s always when it started. Her vision flickered between floating in the starry sky, and the view of a thousand, shining shards flying at her. A cool breeze would blow by her cheeks, just to be replaced by the feeling of blood being drawn. Ying was in charge of her body, every movement, action, reaction – all of it.

And that’s when it ended. She had no say in how her head rammed into the steering wheel.

.

Have you ever been scared of a _smell?_ It’s strange. It’s not like being scared of something you could see, or something tangible because you can’t see a smell coming towards you, or have an audio cue. It’s sudden, fleeting, and rarely predictable.

Not all oil and gases triggered them. Just the right combination and—

.

There was one time where Ying fell into the icy waters of Canada during a mission. The boat was rocked while she was wrestling with a terrorist, and the two of them slid off the deck and into the dark depths below.

Immediately, the shock of the frigid waters and force of the impact forced all air out of her lungs. Hungry currents tugged her down – wanted to claim her for their own. It demanded total obedience from her and she didn’t fight it. She knew what would happen, and yet, she _wanted_ it. Because down here, she couldn’t see the oncoming lights, couldn’t feel how the human body could mimic a ragdoll, and couldn’t _smell_ the distinct scent of fumes from the car oil leaking on the bare pavement.

Valkyrie was an excellent swimmer and a warm body.

.

Have you ever just blinked and realized that you have been walking on autopilot for the last ten metres? It’s unsettling. One moment, you’re in total control of your body’s actions, and the next, you’re leaned up against a lamp post, breathing heavily and staring at nothing.

More than once, she got woken up by Doc, who always gave her a cautious smile.

.

In the months after the accident, Ying laughed every time someone brought up the incident. It was the farthest thing from funny, but she either laughed at it, or cried. And she was always out of tears those days.

There are times when she realizes that her mind is the only safe haven for her consciousness. In her mind, she could pretend like she never felt the impact, or left two seconds earlier, or braked a little sooner, or swerved a little harder… Only to be woken up at the side of a road again, head in her hands and her friend’s concern shoved into her face.

She can’t stop seeing the slide that ruined everything, can’t stop smelling the oil, can’t help flinching at every car that’s just a little too close, _can’t move on._

.

“Ying?”

She did it again. Autopilot. Caused by the strange smell on the hands of Twitch as they passed each other in the hallway.

“Ying, are you ok?” It was always Doc who seemed to find her every time this happened. “Is it the flash-”

“Yes, and I’m fine.”

Doc didn’t like to force his advice on others in most situations, but this was not one of them. “You have some vacation days. I think it’d be good for you to take some days off.”

Maybe she’ll listen to him this time.

~

 

**(Warnings: Unclear attempted suicide, possible depression, feeling lost)**

**02 Jackal’s Numbness:**

For this one, I was thinking back to this intense feeling of wanderlust I used to have that somehow numbed out all other feelings for me. Whether or not it was just the desire to throw myself into a new place, or something else, I still don’t know. But it sometimes numbed out so much that I would regularly pinch myself just to make sure that I was alive. Since Jackal has insomnia and the guilt of never finding his brother’s murderer, I thought he would be the closes to what I felt. It can be read with Buckal flair, but it’s not necessary.

~

“Are you ok?”

“I’m tired, I’m worn out, and I feel like I’m chasing something in my life that I’ve never felt before, nor even knew existed.”

Buck didn’t expect to see Jackal on the roof of Hereford at three in the morning, but, admittedly, if he had to choose someone, he was the most likely person to be here. With caution, and slightly wincing at the cold tiles leeching his warmth, Buck settled beside the Spanish hunter and watched the night sky with him. “Is it like wanderlust?”

“No,” he responded with a shake of his head. “This feeling… I’ve felt it for as long as I can remember, yet I don’t know what it is. I _want…I want something._ ”

“And you don’t even know what you want?”

“I don’t even think it _exists_.”

Alright, so colour Buck confused. “Then how do you know you want it?”

The dark eyes that stared back seemed to hold some sort of envy. “Because I am not, nor will I ever be satisfied.”

“Is it your-”

“This has nothing to do with how much I sleep,” Jackal muttered, turning away from Buck in an obvious show of annoyance. “When I’m wide awake, I just… _I want,_ but I don’t what I want exactly. And when I can’t fight it anymore, it takes over my entire mind, so it’s all just… numb… I can’t feel anything, and I get scared.”

Buck looked at the clothes that were too thin on his arms, and noticed the shivers that screamed that this Spaniard was cold. There was something so fundamentally wrong with him that it was just buried under decades of memories. In short, Buck was hopelessly unprepared to help.

“Buck, what’s wrong with me?” the strangled whisper barely makes it over the breeze to Buck’s ears.

“Nothing.”

“My fingers do their own thing, and I can’t control them. I can feel every drop of blood in my veins, and each one is trying to get to a place that doesn’t exist. My heart is broken, but I don’t know why, and I don’t know where to even begin when it comes to fixing it again. And there are times I can’t feel anything but… _this…_ ”

“You must be cold. That’s why you’re numb,” Buck chuckled, taking off his own sweater and wrapping it around an unwilling Jackal.

Jackal made no attempt to keep the piece of clothing there. “I dreamt of falling. I was here.” He stood, letting the extra clothes drop to his feet. With a perfectly neutral face, he pointed at the ground. “It was calling my name. I can’t feel anything. My heart feels too heavy to stay in my body, but it won’t fall… so I have to make it. I want to break it for real – not this phantom that I’ve been chasing all my life.”

And that’s when Buck shoots up. He wraps his arms around Jackal and all but wrestles the tracker to the ground. Somewhere in the scuffle, Jackal rips the skin on his palm and gasps. That’s the end of the fight.

“Can you feel that, you… ah… C’est bon là. Viens ici.” And he hugs Jackal so tightly that he’d be surprised if he didn’t break a few of his ribs.

Jackal doesn’t say a word, so Buck makes a point to get the locks changed that morning.

~

**(Warnings: Self-harm, mentions of nightmares, attempted suicide, self-hate, projecting harmful thoughts, hurt with a slightly comforting end, though implies future harm.)**

**04: Jäger’s Thoughts:**

It’s kind of based off my thoughts on the outbreak disease since I was thinking that people only turned into monsters after finding an uninfected human. So, my theory was that it could be like the symbiotes in Venom, but less… deadly as it leaves. So instead of killing the host, it just leaves them with an empty feeling.

~

He can’t sleep.

Funny. That one thought is what’s _stopping_ him from sleeping.

But he still can’t sleep.

Jäger turned around one more time, only to hear IQ mutter from across the room, “Dominic, can you stop moving around? I can’t sleep.”

“Wasn’t me.”

A comically timed snore showed it wasn’t Blitz either.

“Are you ok, Jäger?”

It was that. That… that question. Ok, ok. Two things. First, had this been about a month or two ago, she would’ve just told him to shut the fuck up, even if he wasn’t technically talking. Second, he’d heard that asked so many times before that… that he would _lose his mind._ Not because he didn’t like IQ, no. She was kind, and often paid more attention to him than the other two. It was just that… It was such a small change, but for once in his stupid life, he saw it for what it was. He was broken right now, and his mechanical knowledge couldn’t fix it.

“I’m fine. Just not as tired as I thought.”

“If you say so.”

Maybe if he really lost his mind, he would at least feel… _something._ Because this endless void of nothingness was getting tiring. And he knew it was wrong – that, at the very least, it wasn’t _right_.

Why was he alive if he couldn’t even exist properly?

He won’t sleep, but he won’t want to get up in the morning either. There was just… no point. He was at his limit. Doc kept reassuring him that it was just the disease – just the monster in him making its way out after a month of fighting it. Sometimes he can still feel it, but right now, he just feels empty.

His fingers curl into a fist, at first, unintentionally, and for a moment, his brain is focused completely on the pain he’s causing himself.

What if he could feel this all the time? He finally gives up and grants his palms a rest.

.

The others saw the marks on his hand one day when Blitz dragged him out of bed. They had been scabbed over many times, yet never healed after that first night. The pain was just… not good, no, but grounding. It reminded him that he was alive. Perhaps not for long, but alive still.

It wasn’t working anymore though. He craved something else.

And that’s how it started.

He thought about it all the time, to the point where his work on his ADS became secondary. Jäger saw the stares directed at him, but they stared no matter what, didn’t they? Maybe he was just over estimating his abilities and maybe he has no place and maybe-

Mute’s laugh snaps him out of it. A boy, really, almost half his age, and yet with more accomplishments than himself to date. What was his life built on again?

That day, Blitz accidentally spilt his lunch on Jäger when they both took a corner too quickly.

“Oh, sorry, sorry, let me-”

“It’s fine.” It’s ok if Blitz is trying to drive him away after he saw the mess on his hands this morning. No one wants to bother anyways. If they did, wouldn’t they have done something? Or was he another lost cause begging for death on a battle field? But he wasn’t even lucky enough to get that. Jäger smiled.

So, Blitz smiled back. “I’ll treat you to a pint sometime then, ja?”

Jäger continued to smile.

.

He had a plan. A good one.

It was early in the morning. He normally got up at this time to use the washroom. His entire squad knew this already. So, he slipped on a sweater – an old one he wouldn’t mind losing, and was about to leave the room.

“Jäger?” When had they switched to using his callsign instead of his name? He didn’t respond in time, so IQ called his name again.

“Ja?”

“Where are you going?”

“To the washroom.”

“Ok. Just watch your step on your way back. Smoke spilt his drink on the floor, and I don’t want you slipping. Come back soon.”

_Come back soon._

Hah.

Jäger followed the familiar route, passing familiar faces, yet found nothing comforting. By the time he regained full consciousness, he was locked in the washroom by himself. Every other sane person was at least in bed right now.

This was normal. The lights were flickering, there was one toilet that wouldn’t stop making a clicking sound, and… and…

He held a knife in his hands.

It shouldn’t be too hard. He knew how to do it in theory.

_Come back soon._

He froze with the tip of the knife digging into his arms, starting to draw blood.

He was so close to finishing what he started that he could _see_ it. He could see his tombstone, but also his Uncle standing over it. He could see his dead body, but the tears that were shed as well.

He can… He can see the knife dropping to the ground.

Jäger was scared.

He trembled with every shaky breath, every swallow, and yet managed to sheath his knife.

He allowed himself to cry. When it was over, and his cheeks were dry, he snuck back to his bed, expecting a quiet room.

Bandit was on his phone, but he smiled as Jäger closed the door. Blitz was sitting up on his bed, and IQ was just reaching for the handle.

“You took a long time, so IQ thought you slipped and actually split your head open,” Bandit mutters.

Perhaps Bandit and Blitz looked amused, but Jäger knew that IQ was giving him a look of something else.

“I came back,” he murmured, too quiet for the other men to hear.

“I know.”

He doesn’t know if he can come back the next time though.

~

**(Warnings: There’s a semi-graphic scene involving death and one death of an infant. Mentions of guilt, grief, and loss of loved ones, though there’s a semi happy ending)**

**05: Make it Work**

For a while, even before I ever found out about R6S, I had a story idea of a father daughter relationship being the main focus for a story. Said story has since gone through what feels like a million rewrites until I finally gave up. So, their debut came in the Black Ice Operations story I’m writing right now. Iris had an interesting ability in their original story, so I wanted to keep it in their current one. Since it’s never really going to be touched on in the Black Ice story, I thought this oneshot would clear some things up about their background.

~

He has a broken child. A child who won’t laugh, smile, or look at him. And yet he can’t help the surge of emotions in his chest when she comes back home, and dumps a rainbow bag on the cool tiles of a house she cannot call home. At least not while he, a stranger, lives in it. She doesn’t even look at him before climbing the stairs.

It’s been a month. One month since the hospital, one month since the cuts and blood, one month since she lost everything that she ever thought was permanent. One month since Iris watched her parents’ car get forced off the road and into a tree. Her mom, her dad, her baby brother, they were all gone. Instead, she got him. A man she saw as a supervisor at her program, and a poor imitation of a guardian at best. She has never called him dad. Not once.

“How was school?”

There’s no response.

.

Iris sleeps in the master bedroom by herself. Skye insisted that she do so if it made her comfortable. He stayed in the guest bedroom instead. He can hear her cries at night, but he can do nothing to help.

How do you tell a child that they didn’t cause the accident if it wasn’t true? The masked assailants… they wanted Iris’s abilities to themselves. So they calculated it all. Because when responders arrived on scene, the only seat that remained mostly intact was the one she would’ve sat in. Except she was home sick that night, and didn’t go out for dinner with her family. She was left with him that night. She got lucky. Or unlucky. Who can tell at this point?

Skye wishes he could do what she could; read emotions and be able to change and even shift them. A real-life empath.

But tonight, the cries are worse. And he knows why.

Iris’s talents were used to help others. To take away pain or to mend the feelings. And she had just restarted her training, despite all his protesting to his officers. Because when she hadn’t even healed from her own grief… how was she supposed to help others?

He knocked on the door, only to hear the cries quiet down. She doesn’t open the door though, and he’s never been a parent before. He doesn’t know what to do here.

.

One night, she somehow released all those negative emotions into the house. Skye can feel it sucking his happiness away the moment he enters the front door. It’s like a thick mist – a fog that somehow robs you of oxygen. He can’t take it.

Her cries were still echoing through the house when he called up the supervising doctor in charge of the test project. The other man feels it too, tries to talk to her, but gets pushed away with a particularly strong wave of emotions.

So, it’s no surprise when he accepts Skye’s request to be removed from this duty, even if he was the one who volunteered in the first place to try and be a replacement for her. He didn’t know what he was getting himself into.

When he walks up after the papers are laid out on the table, he catches the opening in the master bedroom. Iris was standing there, making eye contact with him. It’s the first time she’s voluntarily looked him in the eyes, but the only emotion he can feel from her is fury.

The worst kind.

It claws at his skin, and if he couldn’t see himself, he’d swear he was bleeding. Not only that, it’s heating him up – igniting a fire that he now realizes is what _Iris_ is feeling. He can see it in her eyes. She just can’t control it. She’s _five._ How could he forget?

And it makes sense. She hasn’t been trying to act out against him, or punish him for intruding in on her home. She has been asking for help – giving Skye an idea of what she’s feeling so he could try and fix her like she fixes others. But he doesn’t know how.

“I didn’t ask for this either,” she says, all signs of anger gone from her little body.

“Iris—” It’s too late. The door closes, and he’s left standing there, and forced look back on every mistake he’s ever made when it came to her.

.

Skye doesn’t know how to comfort a child, and definitely not one as complicated as her. But he can’t help himself from wishing he could. The papers lie on his desk out of her way, but it doesn’t matter. She can sense it from how often he thinks of it.

That night, she screams. Skye didn’t even bother knocking before barging in, and immediately stops, shocked at the state of the room. Every single picture of her family had been carefully taken out from the photo albums and arranged around the bed. They formed a maze with invisible walls, but walls that protected her anyways. Just not tonight.

He can see her nightmare just as clearly as she can. Her abilities were evolving… he just didn’t realize… too wrapped up in his own problems again to remember that he cannot be his own top priority anymore. She was scrambling away from the scene in front of her. He couldn’t hear the same things as her, but he could see their actions. Iris was already against the bedframe, shaking into her covers and tears leaking down her face.

The scene was grotesque. Her father was being stabbed repeatedly, like how he was found, except in real life, it wasn’t a knife, it was pieces from the windshield. Her mother was beheaded, just like how the body was shown to her. And her brother…

“Lukas, no… leave him alone. He’s MY brother…”

The baby was being shaken, held onto by his toes, bloody lines already showing where he was cut by a knife. Then one final one… where he was split in half. Lukas Cai was the only one of the three who didn’t die instantly from the crash. He was murdered.

Skye knew he couldn’t change these visions. They were just visions. A nightmare brought to life by an overactive mind with special powers.

Then, he noticed what she was actually trying to get away from. One of the attackers was now stalking towards her, knife in hand. Iris was getting closer to the edge and—

He darted to the side just as Iris fell off the tall bed. As his arms held her closer, the vision stopped, and she jerked in his grasp. That’s when the real tears started.

“Shhhh, I’m here. Hold onto me.”

The small fists pulled on his nightshirt, but he didn’t mind. Instead, he took note of how the chilly winter air was starting to make her shiver.

As carefully as he could, he sat down on the bed, humming to her, and rubbing her on the back. It’s all he could do.

“Are you going to leave me?”

He freezes. Iris has all but backed off now, looking at him with a level of suspicion that should not exist in a child her age. But how can he blame her? She has reason.

“No,” he sighs, reaching out to caress her cheek. “I want to help you, Iris. I really do. I just don’t know how. Could you tell me?”

Her frown stays, but her eyes have lost their judgment. “I’ll try.”

“Then that’s all I can ask for.”

Her tears start again, so he pulls her in.

“Stay. Please.” Are the only words he can make out.

Her powers were only amplified when in physical contact with another. And Skye knows what that’s like now. He could see lanterns floating all around them, illuminating photos on the ground, the silhouettes of those she misses, and the vague images of memories she’s holding onto. But the only one not shining at all… was in her chest.

He makes the decision.

Or rather—

He makes a promise – one never spoken out loud, but that just makes it all the more meaningful for her.

_Sleep on me._

_Feel the rhythm in my chest and keep breathing._

_Please._

_Because I will stay…_

_I’ll stay so the lantern in your heart won’t fade away._

_Any secrets you tell me… I’ll take to my grave._

_I know you have more to hide, but I’ll stay anyways._

_And if you have nightmares, we can dance on the bed._

_Or I’ll tell you I love you even if you lose your head._

_And if that’s not enough either, we can pray._

_Pray that this home we’ve built won’t break._

_~_

**(Warnings: None. It’s just humour. Unless you don’t like the HC that the multiplayer mode in R6S is just a simulation where they train against each other.)**

**06: Hatches**

Finally, something cheerful! I never did learn how to open a hatch with Maverick, but in a video from spawntaneous on YouTube, I saw her friend stand on a hatch as the hatch opened (after trying for a while), and him just falling into a hail of bullets. So, I thought that’d be a great scenario to write out. Enjoy a break in the angst.

~

“Buck!” Maverick called him over to where he was working on a hatch with his blowtorch.

Buck was currently watching their flank for anyone – basically just Caveira really, but looked away to see his teammate proudly crouched beside the hatch. There were two lines already burned through, but nothing was happening otherwise. No shots, no trap.

The Canadian walked over nonetheless, and gave the hatch a suspicious look. “What is it?”

“Twitch taught me a way to break hatches on my own,” he replied with glee. Buck raised his eyebrows.

“Really?”

“Yeah, she said make two lines on the outside of the hatch, and a half-outline, and then it would just break.” Maverick was starting on the last line that he needed.

Both men waited in anticipation for the hatch to open… but nothing happened.

“You said—”

“I know what I said.” Maverick was now glaring at the hatch that had made him look like a fool.

Buck shrugged and placed a foot on the hatch. “Let me just get Hibana—!” The rest of the sentence disappeared. Along with the man himself.

There was a spray of gunfire, then the announcer spoke over the system that the attackers were now down an operator. Maverick peeked down the hatch and saw Buck’s body lying down on his back. The moment they made eye contact, Buck’s eyes narrowed just the slightest. At least the blood splatter told Maverick about which hatch to open next.

~

**(Warnings: Swearing, death, arguing, mention of nightmares, maybe PTSD (?), no happy ending, and no fluff, death of a child.)**

**07: Not Every End… Is Happy**

Heh. So, my friend asked for a Doc/Lion fic, but I generally don’t support the ship unless a few conditions are met before. Cause damn, I love enemy to lover tropes, but I generally want to see the arc leading up to it. And since I’m the writer, I was just too lazy to write that part, so I just gave them an argument.

~

“Doc… Doc… Gustave!”

Doc stopped the chest compressions and sat there on his knees, looking at the tiny body in front of him. Lion had just walked by and paused in front of the scene. It would be fruitless. The child had not received CPR fast enough due to the fact that there was still an active situation in the area. Then, when Doc was safe enough to start, he and another doctor started treatment. But this was a battlefield. Not a hospital. There was little to no chance of getting this child the help they needed – Doc didn’t even have an AED!

“I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t want to hear it.”

The other doctor was, admittedly, probably ready to stop about five cycles earlier, but Doc _had_ to hold onto the hope that he could salvage the situation. His ally was just too respectful to say anything. A quality that Lion did not share.

“If you actually knew, then you wouldn’t have kept going. It’s about ten minutes in, and we still don’t have a defibrillator. Even if you magically saved the child, they’d most likely be brain dead.”

“Shut your mouth!” The growl was nowhere as strong as Doc wanted, but it was all that he could manage. “I had to try.”

“Your abilities and resources could’ve been used better elsewhere. _Should have been_ used elsewhere.”

Doc stood up and leaned in to talk to his teammate. Despite the height difference, Doc was just as intimidating as Lion remembered. “No. I was needed here, so I _tried_. You can’t take that away.”

“Take what away?” Lion leaned back and placed a hand on his chest to push Doc away. “You can’t save everyone.”

“I know.”

“Not everyone _can_ be saved.”

“I know.”

“You need to be able to let go.”

“I KNOW! For gods – I know, Olivier! I. Know. I… Do you know what the chances are of CPR working in a hospital? In a _hospital,_ we think at most it’s a forty percent survival rate. We didn’t have anything here; no machines, no defib, no code blue – she might’ve had ten percent _at most_. But… I have to try. Do you understand?”

“No. It seems simple. You have someone’s who’s probably never going to come back, and even if they do, they would be damaged beyond recovery. I don’t see the point when there are other patients waiting for help.”

Doc drew a sharp breath. Ooh, if only he could… no. This wasn’t the right place. Or time. Or correct path to take. “You,” his voice started out low – so low, that he saw Lion lean forward just a smidge to hear what he was saying, “may look at a scene like this and see the numbers, but I don’t. I see a child, who has known nothing but fear in their lives, hoping that a superhero will come in and save them. I see a child, desperately clinging onto any reason to live so that they can get a taste of what real childhood is. I see a child, still fighting for a chance in this world despite having all the odds against them.”

Lion leaned back, ready to retort, but Doc wasn’t done yet. “We were lucky bastards, weren’t we? My family was rich, and you had every chance available to you as a white male. We could have turned and stuck our noses in the air and pretend that life was fine. But I chose this path, and you chose yours, so here we are.”

“There are some things we cannot control. Wishing that you could will drive you insane, do you not see it? Focus on what you can change!”

“If I do nothing… That’s what would truly drive me insane. Unlike you, I haven’t made enough bad choices in my life to queue what happened today in the back of all those nightmares.” When Lion tried to argue, Doc held his finger up so he could continue. “Every mistake, every failure, even every death… I see them all. So, when I wake up because of the nightmares, if I can’t say I tried everything in my power, if I can’t prove to myself how much I care, if I can’t say that I did everything right, except the odds were not in my favour, then how can I go back to sleep?”

“You can just learn—”

“For a religious man, you seem very comfortable with your own demons.”

That earned Doc a glare and a sudden motion that seemed like Lion was about to lose his temper, but like Doc’s own outburst, it faded just as fast as it came. “Yes. We are similar in every way except you’re too afraid to face your own conscious to the point where it becomes impractical, and endangers—”

“ _And you’re_ an arrogant coward who has so little confidence in his own morals that he would rather rely on the word of others. Those rules aren’t black and white. Neither are those numbers you love so much. Just because you can justify yourself, doesn’t mean you’re not an asshole.”

Doc took off his gloves with great care and turned to find a trash bin. Just before he was out of earshot, he bid farewell to the person who had plagued his time at Rainbow since the incident. “I’ll see you in the therapist’s office.”

“Not if your dreams wake me up first… _Again_.”

~

**(Warnings: Hopefully you can feel some of the loneliness I tried to write since that was supposed to be one of the driving emotions. Other than that, there’s not much else. Has a vaguely hopeful ending.)**

**08: Soft Sides**

This one’s about Thatcher. When I read his little slip of paper on Harry’s board, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Because of that and the psych profile on the wiki, he came off as lonely/asshole-ish to me. To be clear, the relationship between him and his ex is supposed to be platonic. They would be close if they didn’t treat each other like strangers, yet at his worst, he still reaches out to her for some support, even if it doesn’t feel the same.

~

“No, ok, I’m not alright. It feels like I’m getting pulled down somewhere and this time there’s no one here to save me. But that’s life, innit?”

Harry inclined his head to the side. “It is. But it doesn’t always have to be. Mike,” he really was the only one who was allowed to say that name, “it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”

“Well even if it didn’t, I’m getting older now. I’ve made my bed, so I’ll lay in it.”

With that, Thatcher got up, hiding the discomfort he felt. He fell asleep in a weird position, and his age wasn’t letting this one go. A nice break in his room should help. It used to in the past at least. It was just past midday, and most operators would be at lunch. Most. Because the moment he opened his door, he was surprised to see Mute, who was supposed to be in the workshop. Mute in the workshop, Smoke to be in the lab, and Sledge to be out training SAS recruits, that’s how it was normally. That is to say he wasn’t expecting to see Mute pawing over a mess of papers on his desk when the rest of his room was bare.

Except… those weren’t papers… “Mike, is this your wife?”

“I don’t think you deserve to know considering I just caught you going through my personal belongings. You’re breaking rules there.”

“But—”

“No buts. Go to the workshop and do something useful.”

Mute frowned, but complied anyways. He had too much respect for the older operator to argue back.

.

“Excuse me, miss, we’ve never spoken, but would you like some help bringing those groceries home?”

The young lady was starting to breath heavily with the bulging bags in both hands. Thatcher was just on his way home from the dock, and couldn’t help but notice the struggling noises she was making. He always did have a soft spot for girls in trouble. Call him old and sexist, but that was how it was back then. Had he been born later, he probably would’ve been chewed off for asking that.

“If you don’t mind. I normally don’t buy so much, but there are guests coming over tonight. I live by the church, you know the one with the fountain in the front?”

“Yes, I do. It’ll be no problem.” So, Thatcher, at age nineteen and already through his first deployment, didn’t even blink at the heavy bags. It’s not like anything could drag him down anyways. He had just gotten reupped to enlist with the SAS, so really, he was top of the world. It would only natural that he look to improve at his family life next, right?

.

He was so wrong. Being part of the SAS was demanding. Just after his first few dates with the wonderful woman he met, he was called off to work. So, one morning, he kissed his darling goodbye, promising to regularly write, and to return. In turn, she agreed to wait.

And wait she did. He wrote at least once a week, sending gifts and pictures when he could. It got to the point that he got teased for it, but he would take any hazing as long as she was content. She sent pictures, carefully packaged treats that had long been crushed on their way to him, yet the smell made his heart flutter anyways. Not to mention the whiffs of perfume which he knew she specifically spritzed in the envelope.

But all good things come to an end. First was Operation Nimrod, then he had about half a year off where he eventually married the girl of his dreams. But then came the Battle of Goose Green, the Gulf war, and eventually, it was all too much. Thatcher would be there for a few months, and then leave for half a year or more. It was mostly nice – very domestic compared to what Thatcher had to face at his job. But one thing no one told him was that the very change that helped him enjoy civilian life more, also pushed his loved ones further away.

There were months where he couldn’t do anything but watch as his brother got involved with bad crowd after bad crowd, only to step in once it couldn’t go any further. He watched as his parents grew more distant from him. They respected him, no doubt, but there was an invisible wall between them that did exist, and Thatcher didn’t even know who built it. Then his wife grew more distant too. She missed him, struggled to raise a child on her own, and couldn’t keep a household. His home was becoming just a house, and the time he spent at the docks wasn’t helping either.

Then, one day, he came home from a mission to see the divorce papers on the table, along with the last plate of cookies and just the faintest scent of her perfume.

.

The day was bleeding into night, and Thatcher had enough time to make the call he wanted.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Oh. You haven’t called in a while. Has something gone wrong?”

“No. A teammate dug up old photos. Though I’d check up on ya.”

“Oh, so that’s what finally gets you to call me? Not your child’s birthday, not _my_ birthday, but a co-worker who can’t respect privacy?”

He chuckled, hearing the smile on her end. “And I’m feeling… _it_.”

There was a long silence on her end, and in that time, he opened his mouth to add more. “You were always such a sweetheart. What happened, Mike? You’re always all or nothing. It drove me crazy when we were young and it still does, just in a different way.”

“I don’t know… But thank you for being someone to just… know.”

“Well, you’re welcome.”

It’s not the same. No matter how much they tried to hide it. These phone calls didn’t happen often, but they did happen. They weren’t lovers anymore, but still slightly more than friends. You had to be when you shared so much with each other. Whatever they had now was just a ghost of the bond they once shared though. “Yeah, I guess I kinda like how you take away the pain.”

“Mike,” now she was chiding him. Probably assumed he had a little too much to drink or something.

“No, honestly. It’s getting harder to be me, so it’s good to know you’re still… you.”

Around her, he let his guard down. Always. Until she pulled the rug out from under his feet while he was just getting used to having this source of unconditional love. And he missed having someone who could see past the image he’d earned. He missed how it used to be.

They talked until Mike could finally sort out his thoughts and recompose himself. He still had a base to run.

~

**(Warnings: literally just a torture scene, though it stops right before the actual torture.)**

**10 Just a writing excerpt:**

This is something I liked from my first ever attempt at fanfic. I never did finish the story, and then the thing about JTF 2 disagreeing with Spetz came out, but I wanted to share the first torture scene I ever wrote. Just be aware that it does include torture and an interrogation. Hopefully just something to make you squirm. Buck eventually does get rescued, but suffers PTSD for the rest of that story. It has since been discontinued, but can still be found on Wattpad if you look for it. (Actually, that was the actual first debut of Iris and Ciel, now that I think of it.)

~

Buck was pretty sure this was the closest he’s ever come to death. Every swallow hurt, and he could feel his throat crack as the muscles moved. The last bit of moisture remained, though it wouldn’t for much longer. He gave another tug at the ties that held his hands together behind his back and around a metal pole. His legs were tied in a similar fashion to the cruel piece of metal that denied him any movement.

_Humans can go for about four days without water, you know?_  The voice of the newest addition to Rainbow rang in his head. She had said that when chastised about her drinking habits, and yet here he was, in the same position, except thousands of miles away from where she had uttered that line.

The mission was supposed to go smoothly. Seemed to be nothing new when it came to White Masks. Something about money and funds led them to hold a group of politicians hostage in a house somewhere in a remote area – a field of snow and trees. Maybe that’s where the first problem was. What group of politicians would  _want_ to be in such a run-down area in the middle of nowhere, Russia? All the Spetsnaz but Fuze, who was excluded considering the situation type, were here because of the location. He and Frost had come with them due to their familiarity with the snowy weather they had faced back in Canada.

When they arrived and infiltrated the building, they very quickly discovered that the hostages were dead long before they even knew about the mission. The decaying flesh and rotten smell was more than enough to confirm that when they stormed the supposed hostage room. From there, everything went to shit. White Mask reinforcements arrived by the truckload, and very quickly pinned them in the house. Lucky for them, Frost always brought some of her hunting traps with them, as did Kapkan, and the defence seemed like it would hold for a moment.

But only a moment. Because once the smoke cleared from all the EDD traps, an armoured figure clunked their way towards them, which Tachanka called out as a bomber before starting to fire his LMG at the incoming enemy. It wasn’t quite enough, as Buck hadn’t been able to get far enough from the blast, which meant that a very large piece of wood flew at his head.

When he woke up, he was alone. He didn’t know where his teammates were, or if they were even alive, but he remembered desperately wishing that  _he_  wasn’t _._

_._

Humans were social creatures. Buck was a social person. It turns out the fastest suck on his will to live was the dark room where he had slept by himself ever since he spat on that one person’s face. He squeezed his eyes shut and wished for a single bullet. Preferably in a gun pointed at his head.

“Look who decided to wake up!” a thin voice snaked its way into his head, followed by a solid hit to his gut. The speaker’s first language definitely wasn’t English, but he was never good at telling accents apart anyways.

Buck’s eyes flew open to see the dimly lit room and face the mask he had seen too much of this past week. How long had be been asleep? It was hard to keep track of time when he was locked in a windowless room with no clock.

A dull ache drew his attention back to the present.  _Tabarnak._  The hit was aimed at a particularly large cut he received in his first few moments here, and had just started to scab over. Being hit would surely make it bleed again.

“Answer our question,” the man in front of him demanded. The first thing they ever asked was why Iris had joined Rainbow, and there was no way he’d give that information away. As he waited for answer, Buck couldn’t help but stare at the gleaming metal, reflecting what little light was in the room.

“I don’t know why she was recruited.”

“We figured out why she’s there already, we don’t need that information anymore.”

_Merde. Was there a mole? No_ … Buck grimaced as his assailant moved closer to him. The rank breath was enough to knock out a bear, he joked to himself. The chuckle got stuck in his throat when the cool metal pressed flat against the sweat slick skin on his neck.

“What’s her ‘special ability’? The one about reading people’s minds.”

He laughed at that accusation. At least, it was supposed to be a laugh. It sounded more like a cough instead.

“Read min-” his voice cracked and threatened to disappear completely. Only then did the interrogator bring a bottle of water to his dry and cracked lips. Buck was lapping at the water like a dog, but he couldn’t care because he  _needed_ the moisture that the water bottle brought. It didn’t mater that it tasted stale and slightly metallic because it was water. He drank the entire thing.

“You don’t honestly think she can read minds, non?” he laughed at his captor. The knife, it turns out, wasn’t for show. It cut into some loose skin on his cheek, just above his beard line, and in one cruel jerk, it flicked upwards, slicing the flesh, but not completely separating the chuck of flesh from the rest of him.

His own flesh flopped uselessly against his face when he trembled, blood already starting to trickle through his facial hair and drip onto the ground. The captor dug the point of his knife under the loose piece of flesh and flung it up, letting it bounce against Buck’s face while he giggled at the wide-eyed look he got from the prisoner.

Buck made no sound.

The White Mask didn’t like that.

“I recently learned this phrase, but have you ever heard of salting the wound? Apparently, it hurts. A lot.”

The wince from just imagining it gave away Buck’s fear and panic. When he made no sound, the interrogator switched his grip on his knife and cut into the space right under his collar bone, ripping a piece off of his shirt so the bare skin lay exposed. He could feel the prick of the tip of the knife dig in and start dragging.

Name, birthday, blood type.

_Sébastien Côté_.  _August 20, 1980, blood type O._ It wasn’t enough to block out the pain and discomfort, hell it couldn’t even distract him from his own fear, but it was something to stop him from screaming, whimpering, begging.

His sister once brought him to a tattoo parlour. He sat and held her hand as she got her first and only tattoo. Was this how it felt? The gentle squeeze of her hand, the smell of disinfectant in the air, the sound of easy chatter, and the bright sunlight that bled through the tinted windows of the shop. Why couldn’t he be there right now? Or Hereford. The grey skies, the chill that sometimes cut through his coat which would prompt the question if he was cold. No of course he wasn’t. He was born in snowy, windy Montreal. This little chill didn’t bother him. Not when he was surrounded by a new family. People he would gladly die for. People he was going to die for if this continued. When the knife lifted from his skin – when the warm breath of his captor faded – only then did he dare open his eyes.

Even behind the mask, he could make out the furrowed brows. “Then what. What is her ability? Why did you send a rescue team after her so soon? She was recruited for a reason.”

“Go fuck your mom. I know she enjoys it,” he spat in response.

“Iris…” Buck stilled at that name even when every part of his body wanted to thrash. Demand. How did he know? Where did he find out? “Her name is Iris Cai, a pre-med student at UWK in Canada. We know much about her from what you guys have gathered, you know? But…” he let a blade trail across Sébastien’s neck, reminding him of who was in charge. “The one thing no one knows is her ability. How can she read emotions?”

“I won’t say a word,” he hissed, letting it develop into a grunt of pain as the terrorist let the knife cut into his shoulder a little. A small stream of blood trailed down what remained of his undershirt.

“You are a very impressive representative of Rainbow, aren’t you? Most people who meet me like this would be saying anything and everything by now. You haven’t even shed a tear.”

Buck could only glare back at him. No, he knew he wasn’t going to live through this, but he’d burn in hell before selling out his team.

“I will give you one and only one warning: I’m leaving soon. The person who will replace me is not as nice. I hear she used to be a surgeon. She likes to use all sorts of tools that even I haven’t heard before. Do you know what she’ll do to you?”

No reaction. No reaction. Please, for the love of anything, please let him stay silent until his end. What was it that Lion said before all his missions?

_Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee._

“She has a pair of scissors. Sharp motherfuckers too, but she will make you watch as she cuts of each of your finger pads. Then, she licks off the blood from the blades before spitting it up into your face. If you’re lucky, she won’t aim for your mouth.”

_Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus._

His heart rate betrayed him as it climbed higher and higher. He cursed himself for listening to the nasally voice.

“But her favourite tools are the scalpel and drill. I’ve seen her make swiss cheese out of people with those two. She uses the fucker like a shovel, scooping out layer after layer of flesh. Every non-answer, every silence, every insult is just another bit of yourself that will be… removed. And she knows what parts of you will kill you immediately so don’t think you’ll die so easily. It goes on and on until the scalpel meets air on the other side of you. Literal swiss fucking cheese.”

_Holy Mary Mother of God… oh God._ This  _will_  be the end. Anything he ever amounted to, the memories he made, the values he fought for. This would be the end of him.

The sound of a  _drill_ sounded through the house and Buck tensed up.

“Oh,” the man chuckled and rose to meet the other one walking down the stairs. “She’s here early. And you get the pleasure of meeting her drill too! Lucky man!”

_Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death_. _Amen._

~


	2. The one left behind...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So turns out I forgot one. The first Fanfic I ever wrote for R6S... It wasn't in any of my filing systems so.... oops.
> 
> Anyways, this can be seen as Rook/Twitch, but it's not necessary. 
> 
> Swing by my [blog](https://lacklusterswirl.tumblr.com) to say hi, see what else I post, or ask about my other stuff. I'm also looking for new stuff to write, so if you would like to see something in particular, send me something, and I'll figure it out!

Twitch thought she was still dreaming when she first woke up. The longer she stayed in bed, the more obvious it was that the… _sound_ … was not in her head. She peeked out of her room to look at the shared living space in the GIGN quarters.

Rook was slumped in a chair facing away from her, still in a hoodie and sweats form earlier that day. His hair still looked as messy as it always did after he got up from bed, and given the time of night, that was probably where he came from. He didn’t often stay up by himself. Generally speaking, nothing could get him out of bed – a fact Twitch found out one unfortunate night when he accidentally fell asleep in _her_ bed. She ended up on the couch that night.

Just as she was about to say something, Rook mindlessly reached for something in front of him and silently whispered to himself. “Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom…”

There was the sound of a crunch, and his muttering faded as he chewed on his snacks. She stood at the doorway, frozen as he swallowed and continued his distracted humming.

“Nom nom nom nom nom nom nom…” His chewing followed the second line.

Finally, something clicked in her mind. Just that morning, Mark showed them a video of various pets eating their food. The only lyric in the song was “nom”, a fact she pointed out after both men somehow dissolved into giggles.

Just as he reached for another snack, she spoke up, “Something wrong, Julien?”

“Non.” _Crunch_ “Why would something be wrong?”

She took near silent steps towards the table, just to see a mountain of baby carrots in front of him. “Because your snacking on two pounds of baby carrots while doing your best impression of Eeyore.”

He scoffed. “I’m just hungry, ok? Nothing’s wrong.”

“You’re always hungry, but you’ve never tried to summon a demon with carrots.”

That got him to smile. “I’ve been trying a diet this past week, but I feel like snapping. You know what I did just now? Instead of sleeping, I spent three hours planning out how I could break into the Canadian’s room just to steal some of their unbranded maple syrup that they always manage to smuggle in! I’m going to _break._ ”

“I didn’t know you were on a diet. Did Doc recommend one?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the occasion?” She took a seat beside him and stole a carrot, much to his annoyance.

He pouted and refused to meet her gaze. “Glaz made fun of me…”

“For being… fat?” Twitch made an obvious gesture to look over his body. Since joining Rainbow, she thought he had been losing weight.

“Not exactly. He wasn’t even trying to be mean but…”

She reached out for another carrot, but he shifted the plate away from her so she could just barely touch the edge of the plate. Twitch frowned and he smirked at her before sliding it closer to her again.

“Glaz eliminated me last week because he could hear me running upstairs. Then he said that I should think about changing my armour class to four because of how loud I was.”

A fit of coughs drew Rook’s attention to her and he tried to help her out before noticing that she was _laughing_.

“It’s not that funny…” He crossed his arms angrily. “And even Echo somehow seems to make less noise than me, and we’re basically the same size!”

“So somehow dieting’s supposed to help?”

“Maybe… It’s worth a shot…”

“You didn’t think that maybe it’s cause you have a giant ceramic plate strapped on yourself at all times, wear like, twice as much armour as Echo, and even have harder boots that would obviously make more noise in a wooden house?”

“That doesn’t-”

“Echo’s footsteps are like a cat. It’s not your fault you walk like a regular human being. And if the only reason why your dieting is to try and lose weight… well… I don’t see the point. You’re a handsome man, Rook, and you work harder than anyone else here at the gym.”

He sat silently, glaring at the plate of carrots in front of him. Just as Twitch was about to go back to bed, he shoved the plate away from himself and stood. “I’m starving. Let’s go get burgers.”

Immediately, Twitch’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, and what about that one place that sells black ice cream?”

“Definitely. I even saw that they have cookie cones. As long as Doc doesn’t realize, let’s gain back that weight I lost.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed them. I also post a lot of text stuff that's supposed to be funny on my [ blog ](https://lacklusterswirl.tumblr.com/). That content is pulled from what goes on in my casual games with friends. I also write other stuff, some original, if you're interested, and my ask box is always open if you wanna say hi or ask for progress on any other works.


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